Comment by AnthonyMouse

> The share of income people spend on housing has been very stable over 40 years

That's a misleading metric for two reasons. First, "people" includes all the people who bought a house decades ago before the prices went up, and correspondingly paid the old prices instead of the current prices. And second, it assumes that if housing becomes more expensive what people all do is pay more for housing rather than being unable to afford it and then having to take a longer commute to access housing they can afford, live with their parents, become homeless, etc., which negatively impact the amount or type of housing they get instead of the amount they pay for it.

Meanwhile between 1984 and today median income increased by ~290% while median new home prices increased by ~425%:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA646N

And that's with the gap having reduced a bit in the last couple of years, since home prices have declined slightly since the peak in 2022 while median income continued its usual trend.